Online poker transparency bill dies in Nevada legislature

Wednesday, April 19, 2023 8:52 PM
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  • Howard Stutz, The Nevada Independent

A bill that would shine a light on any cheating activities within Nevada’s small online poker world didn’t survive the state’s legislative process.

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But professional poker player Sara Cholhagian Ralston, the measure’s primary backer, said the conversation surrounding poker transparency in Nevada “is too important to be abandoned, and I hope that it will continue.”

As initially written, AB380 called for the creation of a list of people with interactive gaming accounts who have been suspended or banned for cheating.

Ralston amended the bill to remove the word “cheating” from anywhere in the two-page measure. She also took out any mention of a person being suspended or banned from an interactive gaming system for cheating, instead just creating a list of all players with an account and their status.

Last week, Assembly Judiciary Committee Chairwoman Brittney Miller (D-Las Vegas) said there were not enough votes to move AB380 forward.

Caesars Entertainment, which operates Nevada’s only poker website based on the company-owned World of Series of Poker, opposed the legislation, saying it would create a burden for the company. Lobbyist Michael Alonso said Caesars does “everything reasonably possible to keep bad actors off the [online poker] site.”

Unless Nevada gaming regulators add more transparency to online poker, Ralston said she would seek to reintroduce the bill in the 2025 legislative session.

“I believe that the conversation about poker transparency in Nevada is too important to be abandoned, and I hope that it will continue,” said Ralston, the former executive director of the state’s Patient Protection Commission.

“As someone who cares deeply about the poker industry, I brought this issue forward because of my moral compass and the belief that transparency is crucial to protect the integrity of the game,” she added.

Nevada legalized online poker in 2013, but gaming companies said the state is too small for multiple sites, leaving Caesars as the sole operator.

Nevada is part of the Multi-State Internet Gaming Agreement that was created in 2014 with Delaware to build the player pool for two of the nation’s smallest states in terms of population. New Jersey joined in 2017 and Michigan was added a year ago.

Since 2012, six states — Connecticut, Delaware, Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and West Virginia — have legalized online casino gaming.

(Disclosure: Sara Cholhagian Ralston is the wife of Nevada Independent CEO Jon Ralston. He was not involved in the editing of this story)